


what is your earliest human memory?

by orphan_account



Series: desert lore [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:50:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a dry Plegian night, Tharja is surrounded by warmth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what is your earliest human memory?

On a dry Plegian night, Tharja is surrounded by warmth.

A pair of strong arms with skin like bitter almonds wraps around Tharja’s small five-year-old waist, and a hollowed cheek rests against Tharja’s thick black hair as the little girl points to a pattern of eyes on a page.

"Grandmother, what does this one mean?"

Her grandmother’s hand shakes as she points to it alongside Tharja’s small, clean hand.

"That is the symbol of Grima," says her grandmother. The name sounds worn and sandy, as if it had made the desert its home for a thousand years already. _Thousand_ — as far as Tharja was concerned, that’s as high as numbers went.

"I know Grima," Tharja replies, confident in her five years’ worth of learning. "He sleeps. But no one can sleep forever, right Grandmother? I hate taking naps."

Her grandmother merely nods and echoes Tharja’s sentiments. “No one can sleep forever, my dear.” The girl is satisfied and returns to browsing the book’s dusty pages when her grandmother presses a small object into her hand. It’s a tiny circlet of reptile bones, certainly not meant to be worn as a crown by any human— a bird or rodent, perhaps, but on a human it would fit as a ring at best.

The ring is halfway into Tharja’s mouth before her grandmother slaps her hand and makes _tsk tsk_ noises, holding the little girl’s hand steady to slip the ring onto her tiny pinky finger. “Remember that the Fell Dragon will someday wake,” she rasps, her voice strained like a Plegian drought. “He is in all of us, and will return. And you, my child, will bow to receive him.”

Tharja blinks, too young to understand the magnitude of her grandmother’s words. All she knows is that her grandmother sounds tired, the bone ring is too big, and the sky has been dark for a while now. Desert nights are long and dry, but Tharja has her grandmother and a thousand stories as she waits for the night to end.


End file.
